


Hammer to Fall

by Raine_Wynd



Category: Stingray (US TV), The X-Files
Genre: AO3 1 Million, Gen, Inspired by Music, X-Files Lyric Wheel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 15:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1190544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raine_Wynd/pseuds/Raine_Wynd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The latest target of the Consortium's pet assassin doesn't go down easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hammer to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer and Notes: Not mine and borrowed for the sole purpose of playing in the sandbox. Stingray characters and concepts belong to Stephen J. Cannell; X-Files, to Chris Carter. Lyrics for Queen’s “Hammer to Fall” courtesy of jmckibben.
> 
> Holy cow, people. I defaulted on this when I signed up for this challenge, so the story languished, and it took me nine years to finish it. Nine freaking years...totally forgot it existed until I went hunting for something to post in honor of the AO3 1 Million mark. Hope you like it!

He was in an old man now, balding, copy paunchy, nearsighted, almost sixty. More to the point, he was retired. The house had been willed to him, a final payment of a favor he’d performed years ago, as had the old and deaf greyhound named Chaser who lay patiently in a corner of the garage. Twenty years of favors collected, bargained, traded and sold had brought him to a 3000 square foot house north of Seattle with a fenced-in yard, a double-car garage, and neighbors who knew his schedule just as well as he knew theirs. He’d gotten out, and considered himself more than lucky that he’d been able to leave when he did. He’d lost so much in that time, so much he only saw in dreams, and it had been healing to find that he hadn’t lost everything, that the little pieces of himself that had fallen away could be found again if he just took the time.

It had been difficult at first to walk away, to stop obsessively checking the classified ads to see who needed him today, but over time, he'd learned to cope. There weren't too many who owed him anything now, and he liked it that way. It had become too much to keep track of, too much of a trail to leave for someone to find him, and he’d heard rumors that there were people looking for him who didn’t like the way he operated. Some would have said the better move would have been to vanish entirely, to leave no one behind who remembered he could be contacted with an ad to barter a Stingray Corvette. He chose instead to hide in plain sight, to wait for the hammer to fall.

He was working on his black ’66 Stingray when he heard a car pull up. He didn’t pay it much heed at first, but then he felt Chaser nudge his foot. Carefully he emptied the hose of radiator fluid and stepped out from under the hood of the car. He didn’t recognize the car blocking his ‘Vette, nor the man who was walking up to him.

He noticed details – the stiff way one arm was held, the black leather jacket despite an unseasonably warm fall day, the paramilitary stride, the sunglasses that hid the stranger’s eyes. He didn’t need a psychic to tell him trouble had just pulled up to his door; years of experience with the type did. If he wasn’t mistaken, Lady Mercy wasn’t going to be home tonight, and he had better figure out what he was going to do about it, and fast. What had been a gorgeous opportunity to take his beloved ‘Vette through the mountains was starting to look a hell of lot less likely than it had twenty minutes ago. Silently, he swore. 

“Can I help you with something?”

“Hi,” the stranger greeted, pulling off the sunglasses with an easy smile and tucking them into a pocket. “I’m here about your ad on cars.com?”

“I don’t have an ad running.”

“Oh.” Seemingly crestfallen, the stranger pressed on and stepped forward, deliberately invading the garage. “It’s a beautiful machine. I could’ve sworn I’d seen it for trade—”

“It’s not for sale or trade.”

“That’s not what the ad said.”

He narrowed his eyes. “It’s off the market.”

“That’s not how it used to be,” the stranger said softly. “Was a time, Ray, when all it took for you to come running was for someone to answer an ad.”

“That was a long time ago, son.” Deliberately, he stressed the last word. Something about the stranger made Ray want to press his buttons, to know for sure how this enemy was going to react. If today was going to be the day Ray died, he was going to not go down easy. 

Almost predictably, the stranger pulled a gun and cocked it. “It’s now. Tell me about the scientist who tried to poison the water supply.”

“You’ll kill me as soon as I tell you anything, so why should I even bother?”

“You’d do me the favor of having to clean up your ‘Vette.”

Ray laughed. “Go ahead, take it. You’ll do anyway once I’m dead.”

“I’m not interested in your death, but I’ll take it if I have nothing else.”

“The scientist is dead. The anthrax never made it. You won’t find any records of either.”

“You’re lying.” The assassin came closer, but Chaser growled, picking up on the threat.

The fight was glorious, and every bit the battle Ray expected it would be. To his surprise, though, the killing blow didn’t come. The stranger pulled his strike, cocked his head, and just…stared for a moment. Nodded once and stepped back. “You fight like you believe you’re right,” he finally said.

“I always have,” Ray replied cautiously. He had a measure of the man now; he was a trained assassin, but for some reason he wasn’t following his orders. “History won’t care at all if you or I die, but I’d rather know my friends can say I did the right thing.”

“And the right thing was to make sure the scientist didn’t do what he was ordered to do?”

“Yes.”

The assassin considered. “Rumor has it you’ll do things for future favors.”

“Sparing my life is not worth an unspecified favor requested by the likes of you,” Ray replied. “Especially since I don’t know your name.”

“Alex Krycek. Why isn’t your life worth that much?”

“Because you run with men who think you’re so far beneath them, you live in an underground sewer so full of their filth and blood. You’re only a hired gun for them, a tool to be used and discharged like yesterday’s garbage. If you came to me for a favor in the future because you spared my life now, I’m certain I won’t live to see the outcome. You are what I was, boy, a lifetime ago. So either you kill me or you walk away clean, and you don’t come knocking on my door ever again.” 

Krycek stared at him for a long, wordless moment. “They think you’re a fool who meddles in things he doesn’t understand, who pulls strings out of hats they thought they owned. I’d be careful if I were you.”

Then the assassin turned and walked away.


End file.
